Page:Cathlamet On the Columbia.djvu/78



N addition to these medicines Indians of the higher circles had Indian medicine men. A sick Indian, a smoky lodge, a hundred Indians beating the roof with poles to a monotonous chant and dance, and a temporary maniac manipulating the sufferer with rattles and Indian trumpery, it was weird medical work, and soon transferred the Indian of the higher circles to the select circle of Abraham's bosom.

The Indian war dance has for the last one hundred years been practically unknown on the lower river. Occasionally some feeble effort was made to imitate it, but nothing was ever done that could for one moment be compared with